Surviving Mother Nature

Friday

Jan 8, 2010 at 2:00 AM

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Mother Nature wasn’t too kind to Main Street in 2009. The month of June was basically a rainout, where there was some precipitation on all but a handful of days. And in a month when school isn’t yet out and much of our tourism is week-to-week (or weekend to weekend), bad weather is directly related to fewer bookings and thus fewer visitors.

Mother Nature wasn’t too kind to Main Street in 2009. The month of June was basically a rainout, where there was some precipitation on all but a handful of days. And in a month when school isn’t yet out and much of our tourism is week-to-week (or weekend to weekend), bad weather is directly related to fewer bookings and thus fewer visitors. The Father’s Day Car Show was hampered by rain and a percentage of the cars didn’t even make it out of their garages as a result. It even affected our springtime fundraiser, which we optimistically scheduled at an outdoor venue, Trader Ed’s.

This past summer, we cancelled two Tuesday night Movies on the Green showings and called off a bunch of acts at numerous Thursday night summer strolls. The Pops by the Sea shortened its program a bit due to impending rain, and later in the month, the inaugural Cape Cod Fine Arts Festival had to outright cancel its first day due to the vestiges of a hurricane. Even our Christmas Stroll was a victim of poor weather. (In fact, only the Fourth of July Parade and Halloween Trick or Treat were major events that enjoyed clear blue skies.) This string of so-called bad luck disrupts organizations’ budgets and spreads a malaise about New England that at times leads to people choosing to visit or live elsewhere. While you might throw up your hands and say, c’est la vie, we depend on these events and the visitors they bring to Main Street – and the Cape – and the municipalities and groups like ours must do everything we can to mitigate the effects of lousy weather.

The same applies to the effects of the nor’easter that hit us days before Christmas. We all know the Cape has its challenges dealing with snow. Because we aren’t Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine, we really don’t have the equipment to fully address a storm of a certain magnitude. The Town of Barnstable has a lot of roads to cover, and can’t possibly make everyone happy. We were thankful that they cleared most of the Main Street sidewalks so promptly, but definitely witnessed the lack of resources days later when numerous parking spots along the street had yet to be cleared, and portions of the street were still only one lane of traffic when it should’ve been two. To the merchants who diligently cleared snow, and to visitors to the street who braved the piles of snow and slush, thank you.

We look forward to sitting down to address the response in days ahead, and looking into the possibility of a parking ban, which will allow the DPW to clear the streets more efficiently without any cars to stand in their way. The merchants lost some bona fide Christmas business due to the storm, as the week before the holiday is one of the best shopping weeks on any Main Street. So while we don’t expect miracles, we do hope that the Town recognizes the shopping season as a crucial economic driver here, propelling some merchants through the rest of the off-season with healthy sales in this crucial time.

The storm also reinforced the fact that businesses on Main Street have to advertise to passersby that they are open in these off-season months. Signage issues that we might assume only apply to the summer months become even more important in winter, when piles of snow periodically obscure one’s line of sight down the street. We will be proposing some changes to the Town Code regarding signage in the coming months.

Most importantly, bad weather teaches us that you must always plan for the worst, that communication is key in times of uncertainty around an event, and in some cases, it doesn’t hurt to have a Plan B. Hey, we’re not San Diego, where weather is very predictable. Nor are we New Orleans, which bore the brunt of one of the worst weather tragedies in modern history. We are hearty New Englanders, who with a little careful planning can not only withstand but succeed in spite of the rain and snow Mother throws our way.